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"One teenager told an advocate who visited that she was helping care for a young child she didn’t know because the child’s aunt was somewhere else in the facility. She said she had to show others in her cell how to change the girl’s diaper," Nomaan Merchant wrote.

In another facility, Dr Colleen Kraft, the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said she observed a young girl crying uncontrollably and pounding her little fists on mat.

Staff members tried to console the child, who looked to be about two-years-old, Kraft said. She had been taken from her mother the night before and brought to the shelter.

The staff gave her books and toys — but they weren’t allowed to pick her up, to hold her or hug her to try to calm her. As a rule, staff aren’t allowed to touch the children there, she said.

“The stress is overwhelming,” she said. “The focus needs to be on the welfare of these children, absent of politics.”

Images from inside the camps where these immigrants are held have sent shockwaves across the globe in recent days. (AP) (AAP)Blanca Orantes-Lopez had her eight-year-old son forcibly removed from her care, and hasn't seen him for more than a month. (AP) (AP)

HOW MANY CHILDREN?

So far there are 2300 instances in which President Donald Trump's administration has separated minors from their migrant parents in an effort to deter illegal immigration.

Blanca Orantes-Lopez is one such woman who had her eight-year-old son forcibly removed from her care, and hasn't seen him for more than a month.

She fled her home with her boy and his father after an anonymous call demanding $5,000 or her child's life.

Two months later, she sits in a federal prison south of Seattle. The boy, Abel Alexander, is in custody at a children's home across the country in upstate New York. She has no idea when she might see him again.

"I still haven't been able to talk to him," Orantes told The Associated Press in Spanish as she wept through a telephone interview Monday from the prison. "The most difficult is not seeing him."

She and her son split from the boy's father in Guatemala. He remains in hiding, and Orantes said she does not know where he is. Upon reaching the border, she and Abel found it impossible to apply for asylum at a port of entry, Adams said.

"A lot of people are showing up at the border to apply for asylum and are being told, 'We don't have capacity for them,'" Adams said. "It's not like they can just stand in a line for several days, because then the Mexican officials will grab them and deport them. So they're then forced to go through the ravine or the river."

Photos show young children sprawled on mattresses on cold floors, with only silver space blankets for protection and comfort. (AP) (AAP)

That's what they did. The pair crossed illegally into Texas and immediately reported themselves to immigration authorities and requested asylum, Adams said.

They were separated so Orantes could be prosecuted.

The woman said she was moved to different detention facilities, including in Laredo, Texas, and placed among other desperate, crying mothers. At one point, officials brought Abel to her, she said.

"They told me, 'Say bye to him because he's being transferred.' I asked where," she recounted. "They just told me to say bye to him. ... He just started crying, saying, 'Don't leave me, Mom.'

"I just said, 'It'll be OK.' That's all I said."

THE JUSTIFICATION

On Monday, an audio recording which appears to capture the sounds of a small Spanish-speaking child crying for their 'Papa' was leaked prompting even more urgent calls for family separation at the southern border to end.

Human rights attorney Jennifer Harbury said she received the tape from a whistleblower and told ProPublica it was recorded in the last week. She did not provide details about where exactly it was recorded.

On Tuesday the US withdrew from the "hypocritical and self-serving" United Nations Human Rights Council, Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the UN announced.

The administration adopted a new "zero tolerance" policy in April designed to curb a wave of Central American migrants who say they are fleeing violence at home. Homeland Security officials now refer all cases of illegal entry for prosecution.

Authorities say they are required to remove the children before they can prosecute the parents, but many parents, including Orantes, have remained separated from their children long after being convicted.

"We will not apologise for the job we do or for the job law enforcement does, for doing the job that the American people expect us to do," Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told the National Sheriffs' Association in New Orleans. "Illegal actions have and must have consequences. No more free passes, no more get-out-of-jail-free cards."

US Customs and Border Patrol showing people inside a United States Border Patrol Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, USA. (AP) (AAP)Many have labelled the family separation a humanitarian crisis. (AP) (AP)

THE REACTION

Many conservatives, including controversial Fox News host Laura Ingraham, have thrown their support behind the Trump administration and its practices.

On her show this week, The Ingraham Angle, she compared the migrant camps where children are held in isolation from their families to "summer camps".

In a similar vein, Fox and Friends co-host Steve Doocy declared that kids were not being housed in cages, but "walls out of chain link fences".

“While some have likened it to — them to concentration camps or cages, you do see that they have those thermal blankets, you do see some fencing, but keep in mind — some have referred to them as ‘cages,’ but, keep in mind, this is a great, big warehouse facility where they built walls out of chain link fences," he said.

Amid the outrage, President Trump remains remaining defiant on the practice - which many have labelled a humanitarian crisis - blaming the Democrats, and insisting that the practice of separation is official policy.

According to CNN, he did concede during a closed-door GOP meeting on Tuesday: "The crying babies doesn’t look good politically".

An undated photo showing people inside a United States Border Patrol Processing Center, in McAllen, Texas, USA. (AP) (AAP)Children taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States, rest in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas. (AP) (AP)

But with even his own family opposing family separation, including daughter Ivanka and wife Melania, the President is reportedly refusing to change the policy.

"Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform," her communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN on Sunday.

"She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart."

Even if Republicans manage to pass an immigration bill through the House, which is a tall order, the fight is all but certain to fizzle in the Senate.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader from New York, is adamant that Trump can end the family separations on his own and that legislation is not needed.

In the House, GOP leaders scrambled Tuesday to produce a revised version of the broader immigration bill that would keep children in detention longer than now permitted — but with their parents.

The major change unveiled Tuesday would loosen rules that now limit the amount of time minors can be held to 20 days, according to a GOP source familiar with the measure. Instead, the children could be detained indefinitely with their parents.

- With AP

Amid the outrage, President Trump remains remaining defiant on the practice. (AP) (AP)Part of a shelter used to house unaccompanied foreign children in Brownsville, Texas. (AP) (AP)